No road, no map—but no child left behind

At dawn, the Khowai River lies quiet, its waters cutting through dense forest and steep hills. For the families of Kalicharan Para, nestled deep inside the Atharamura mountain range of Tripura, this river is not just a lifeline— it is the only road they have ever known.

Kalicharan Para, a small hamlet in Noonacherra under Mungiakami Block of Khowai district, exists beyond the reach of roads and routine services. To get there, one must endure a five-hour boat journey, navigating rough waters, thick jungle, and unforgiving terrain. For years, this isolation has come at a cost. Children have grown up without routine immunization, and pregnant women have faced motherhood with limited access to essential healthcare.

For the public health system, reaching essential health services to Kalicharan Para represented one of the hardest challenges: a community quite literally off the map.

Recognizing the urgency, the district administration and WHO National Public Health Surveillance Network (WHO-NPSN), identified the village as a priority high-risk area. What followed was not a routine visit, but a determined effort to carry quality health services across rivers and forests — directly to the doorsteps of the unreached.

The Khowai river is the only road to Kalicharan Para, deep in Tripura’s Atharamura mountains (Photo: © WHO India/ Padmaram Jamatia)

When the outreach health team finally arrived at the village, it brought with it more than vaccines and medical kits. Senior officers travelled alongside frontline health workers, signaling that this mission mattered. The team included the Medical Officer from the Primary Health Centre, the Community Health Officer from the nearest Ayushman Arogya Mandir, and state and district leadership led by Dr Soubhik Debbarma, Member Secretary (National Health Mission), and Mr Rajat Pant, District Magistrate and Collector, Khowai. They were joined by the Chief Medical Officer, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, local Primary Health Centre officials, and the WHO-NPSN team led by Dr Tigran Avagyan—united by a shared resolve to reach the unreached.

For the villagers, the impact was immediate. Eleven children under the age of five—each previously “zero-dose” children —received their first-ever vaccinations. For their parents, it was a moment of relief and quiet hope: protection against diseases they had long feared but felt powerless to prevent. Alongside immunization, the camp provided basic preventive healthcare services, addressing needs that had gone unmet for years.

Yet the most powerful moments unfolded not at the vaccination table, but in conversation. Sitting with villagers, listening to their stories, the teams heard firsthand about the daily realities of living beyond access—missed services, long journeys, and the sense of being forgotten. These exchanges transformed statistics into lived experiences and underscored the structural barriers faced by communities in Tripura’s most remote corners.

WHO NPSN team accompanied senior government and medical officers from the Khowai district administration and frontline workers to Kalicharan Para to listen to community and respond to their unmet needs (Photo: © WHO India/ Swapan Das)

The journey did not end at Kalicharan Para. The lessons learned there travelled back to the State Headquarters, where WHO NPSN convened a high-level meeting with senior officials. Together, they discussed building a sustainable and scalable framework to strengthen immunization and essential primary healthcare delivery in hard-to-reach areas—so that geography no longer determines a child’s chance at a healthy life.

Kalicharan Para stands today as a powerful reminder of what is possible when collaboration meets commitment, and when systems bend to reach people rather than wait for people to come to them. Deep in the Atharamura hills, a simple truth echoed through the forested silence: “No child should be left behind, no matter how distant the destination.”